Hi everyone!

Having landed in Kuching we arrived at the hostel where Lowri, Jackie and Chris ran out and excitedly greeted us! It was great to see them and catch up on the last 5 months, but there was no hanging around...we squeezed a lot into the 2 weeks we had in Sarawak and Sabah (Malaysian Borneo)!

We began with the Rainforest Interhash event held in Kuching, where we went on 2 jungle runs and both Hannah and Lowri had Christenings into the Hash family as 'Slippery Dip' and 'Slippery Route' due to their falls in the mud and rivers along the trail. In between the runs we visited the OrangUtan sanctuary where we were able to get up close to the amazing creatures and watch they swing gracefully from branch to branch. We also took a boat up and down the river to get a different view of the city, enjoyed the local food, and cooled ourselves with Tiger beer!

Following the Hash, we headed north into Sabah and prepared ourselves to climb Mount Kinabalu. The two day hike up the mountain to the summit (4095m) was hard work but we made it for a glorious sunrise! We were especially proud of our achievement because Jackie had found a rat in the bedroom the night before, meaning we all had quite a restless night! Although we'd made it to the top with few problems, it was coming down that was hard. For the next 4 days after climbing all of us we aching, and struggled to even get up the stairs of the hostel!

A few days on beaches on the islands near Kota Kinabalu helped our muscles recover as snorkling and swimming was the extent of our physical activities. In the evenings we headed to the Filipino Market where we found incredibly cheap and tasty fresh seafood. The market was a jumble of vegetable, noodle, fish and drink stalls and we didnt really understand how the place operated but we ate well every night and discovered that Sting Ray was delicious!

Borneo was a fantastic place with so much variety and we were sad to leave, but we're also very excited about our next stop in Bali...next blog coming soon!

Bye for now xx